


Classless

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Series: Classless [1]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Only briefly in Better Call Saul universe, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Teacher!Walt, Then early season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3575937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing from his desk, Walt ruminated on the hollowly reassuring mantra of “Leave it, Walt. Leave it alone” as he straightened his Father’s Day mug, as he grabbed his briefcase, as he brushed off the eraser fragments scattered across the black soapstone surface like the shredded stuffing of a falling airline seat. He tried to convince himself he had any intention of doing so: </p><p>of leaving it alone, </p><p>of leaving Jesse alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Безвкусица](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5891536) by [Breaking_Bad_2015](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breaking_Bad_2015/pseuds/Breaking_Bad_2015)



_April 2002_

Nothing about this scenario was new to Walt. It was just past four on a Wednesday and raining, storming rather; murk and fog thickly darkening the windows he’d managed to effectively seal shut between morning classes. Walt had heaved them open earlier to combat the air-conditioning that unfailingly thrummed to life in the second week of April with no regard to the actual weather. His shoulder was still throbbing. Walt was fatigued, hungry, and mildly constipated. His classroom door was open as per protocol. And, Jesse Pinkman was standing in front of Walt’s desk with an elbow braced on the lab table behind him with his other hand to his mouth, teeth working the peeling skin of his thumb nail, giving his cuticle the concentration of some sort of masochistic manicurist.

Pinkman’s back was almost bowed with the effort he seemed to be exerting to achieve such a nonchalant posture. Walt understood the limberness of youth, but it looked incredibly uncomfortable. Something about it was upsetting, like an eyesore or shoddy craftsmanship. He wanted to realign Jesse like an ill-fitting component to a larger machine. All the boy needed was a few minor adjustments. Walt could picture a simple nudge in the right direction, slight twist, perhaps a tug: a tight-fisted, tattoo-wristed, bony-knuckled tug along Walt’s shaft.

“ _Dumbass_ ,” Pinkman said.  

His eyes were on the television cart Walt had wheeled out for his sixth period. He’d played a short informative video on ionic bonds and switched it to a local news station for white noise.

Walt cleared his throat and vainly hoped he could achieve the same results with his subconscious.

“ _Language_ ,” he said.

“Uh, _English_ , yo.” Pinkman smirked with lips still half obstructed by his fingers.

Walt neither had the patience nor the time for this.

He had at bare minimum another ninety assignments to grade before he would attempt the grocery run he’d promised Skyler. “Attempt” was apt phrasing considering his mental list had gradually evaporated throughout the day from the full lined sheet of pink Ziggy reminder notes he’d insisted he hadn’t needed to just the faintest recollection of paper towels, ketchup (Hines), and Splenda. Coffee filters had to be on there because he could at least remember being clean out of those this morning. He had to stomach the thin, watery, burned teacher lounge alternative, and he was on his fifth cup. His sleep had been fractured partially by last night’s lightning, but mostly from Walt Jr. crawling onto the center of the bed just past midnight and then peacefully drifting off with his elbow jabbed into Walt’s spine. He was operating with maybe three hours of shuteye. His last brief REM cycle featured an incredibly vivid stress dream: Walt held at gunpoint, firearm sharply pressed against his lumbar, wearing nothing but his underwear as he stood as motionless as possible in Gretchen’s deceptively spacious studio apartment from their first year in graduate school. Most disturbing was the momentary out-of-body change of perspectives when Walt got a clear look at who was holding the weapon. Slouched between Gretchen’s green futon and ironic, framed Nietzsche poster from her freshman year at Princeton was Jesse Pinkman. It was a casting choice he hadn’t much reflected on, especially since this nightmarish nonsensical gibberish had ended with Pinkman’s palm on his stomach, trailing down like a balmy paw against his skin with the gun forgotten and a confidently spoken “What’s up, Mr. White?” then a chuckle and “I bet you are.” And, then he was: both awake and up in the most nauseating manner possible.

Walt was positive he wanted to deal with Pinkman even less than the kid wanted to be in Walt’s classroom after the final bell. The only thing Walt had to look forward to was the BLT he’d thrown together that morning in the hustle of coming up with the last few pop quiz questions for his freshman and pouring Walt Jr. a second helping of Cinnamon Life and trying to explain to his son why this cereal was purchased over his requested Cookie Crisps. Frying bacon and explaining sugar content to an eight-year-old at seven AM on the backside of his most guilt-ridden, glorious, in-shower relief of morning wood since junior high was much more difficult than it should have been. But, his half-eaten sandwich packed safely in the mini-fridge in his supply closet was a friendly, beckoning glint of sunshine to an otherwise bleary afternoon.

“Do you know why I asked you to see me after school?”

He was too exhausted to care that he was speaking in clichés or asking rhetorical questions with answers he knew better than the ones on this morning’s true or false warm-up assignment pinned beneath his red Sharpie.

Pinkman squinted. “Yo, Mr. White, weren’t you wearing like a yellow sweater earlier?”

Walt nodded with a similar, puzzled narrowing of his eyes, believing it unnecessary to go into the details of how it had become a tomato-stained, rumpled ball crammed inside his briefcase. Even the nice things in Walt’s life had a way of shitting on him.

“This, uh, button-down shirt thing you got going on works for you better.” He shrugged and tilted his head. “Like more so than that lame-ass sweater. It’s like more professional and shit.”

“Language, Pinkman,” Walt said. He could hear rubber boots and the swish of waterproof raincoats pass down the hall. It was pouring out. “While I’m not sure if that was aimed as a compliment, I don’t think I have any plans on taking wardrobe advice from someone who can’t find a jacket in his size or one with the proper spelling of the word ‘corn.’”

Pinkman clapped his hands to his chest over the stitched black lettering. “It’s a band, yo.”

The motion rocked the drooping excess material back and forth against his knees. His grey hooded sweatshirt honestly looked as if it had all intentions of swallowing this skinny kid right in front of him. Pinkman was unbelievably scrawny, very pale, sporting a degree of dark under-eye circles usually reserved for the kind of people who did some form of actual work. Simply on an observational level, Walt had noticed Pinkman was handsome with a sort of calculated grungy appeal: hair most definitely deliberately disheveled in front of a bathroom mirror, strutting around school amid his so-called posse of slackers, though without a violent one in the bunch, obstinately chain-smoking the designated ten feet away from the no-smoking zone sign in the front parking lot and waving to him with a cheeky smirk.

Maybe a week or two ago he’d been loading a box of lab reports in the back of his Aztec and caught sight of Pinkman with Robert, the new student teacher of the English department who tended to greet people with Shakespeare quotes. He had no inkling of a clue as to what the two of them had to talk about. But, Robert was gesturing with his arms agitatedly and frowning, and Pinkman remained as unaffected as ever as he sucked on his cigarette deeply enough to highlight shockingly delicate cheek bones. It had taken Walt much too long to recognize he was admiring him. But, that look of Pinkman’s was beginning to fray over the past month, and his oddly appealing sickly appearance reminded him of the box of dated fashion magazines Skyler had recently unearthed from the attic. She’d called the look heroin chic, said it was all the rage five or so years ago, practically gave her a complex trying to shop for bathing suits. Walt had adamantly reminded her of how beautiful she was, and he’d innocently enough compared her to Marilyn Monroe. She had seemed visibly uncomfortable by the compliment all the way up until she was talking to him again over vegetarian lasagna and Walt Jr.’s pleading to watch some Japanese animated show that was marketing itself with playing cards. Those cards had been banned from schools as seriously as drug paraphernalia a few years back. Walt hoped Pinkman wasn’t experimenting with anything harder than the marijuana he could smell off practically every filament of his enormous clothing.

The television had apparently become interesting again. Walt idly noted a story on some sort of “local hero” saving a man who had almost fallen from a billboard. The boy seemed fairly fascinated, comically wide-eyed.

“ _Pinkman_ , do you know why I asked you to see me after school?”

He lifted one shoulder while still staring at the screen. “‘Cause watching T.V. by yourself kind of totally blows.”

Walt removed his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose before wiping the lenses. “No. I was more concerned with you failing to turn in last night’s homework assignment and then falling asleep during today’s quiz. Do you care to explain any of this?”

“Yo, are you like paying attention to what’s going on in the world?” He made a sweeping motion towards the television.

A man with brown hair and a suit was being interviewed by someone off camera with the headline “Jimmy McGill: Local Hero” stretched out below him.

Walt made a moderate effort to suppress a yawn. “I’m not making a connection here.”

“Can I have some of that?” Pinkman _openly_ yawned.

It took Walt a moment to understand what Pinkman was even referring to, and though he wasn’t sure, he assumed it was his lukewarm thermos of crappy instant coffee.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I didn’t ask you to come to my class so we could watch television together over coffee as if we’re….”

Pinkman raised an eyebrow. “Friends? Yeah, no worries on that, Mr. White. It ain’t like I like you either.”

Cupping the back of his grey and red beanie, he nodded to the set. “It’s just like I’m being serious when I say the ABQ is going to like the pots or whatever. I mean, there’s trained, professional dudes almost nose-diving off billboards. And yesterday one of my aunt’s bridge-club friends is calling her up, complaining about some whack-job in a space blanket jacking her newspaper, and how she called the cops and they busted down his door ‘cause he was like a tweeker. Then I got to spend the whole drive to my aunt’s doctor’s appointment trying to explain to her what the hell a tweeker is and listen to the same Stevie Nicks cassette for like the ninetieth time this week and remember to pick up more Bactine for my new wrist tatt. And she’s asking _me_ what a space blanket looks like. ‘Cause what I do like, Buzz Lightyear? You can’t expect me to deal with that shi…”

He stopped, screwed his mouth to the side and sucked his teeth. “…Deal with that _stuff_ and stay awake long enough to memorize all the different types of like ironic bonding or whatever.”

“It’s _ionic_ bonding,” Walt said. He set his marker aside and tapped at his desk because there had been something of genuine concern in Pinkman’s newest babble. “You said you took your aunt to a doctor’s appointment? Is she ill?”

While Walt had very minimal psychiatric knowledge, Pinkman showed signs of withdrawing about as loud as his blood-dripping, misspelled, so-called band t-shirts. His lips were pinched together, gaze darting to the side, stance stiffening.

“It was like a regular checkup. No biggie, yo.”

“Well, if it’s ‘no biggie, _yo_ ,’” Walt said.

He was raising his voice now and the kid actually had the nerve to snicker and roll his eyes, and Walt didn’t want to dwell on _just_ how much seeing _that_ on this _particular_ face ticked him off. It ignited an itch in him, a nerve that seemed improperly associated with arousal, like two incongruent live wires fused together. With a lurch in his lower abdomen, he recognized he was getting hard. He tried talking over it.

“I don’t see why the matter is relevant to your last _nine_ assignments you have yet to turn in. I know I’m not your math teacher, but I feel I need to remind you that nine zeros don’t exactly foster a healthy grand point average. As a matter of fact, if you don’t make at least a C-plus on the last two tests and a C-minus on the final exam, you won’t pass my class.”

“ _Shit_ ,” he said. He rubbed at his nose. “Sorry for swearing again.”

A limb from one of the nearby maples scraped across the window with the force of the rain now falling in nearly horizontal sheets, and the sharp, high-pitched sound against the glass spooked them both. The television sizzled and popped on and off with static a second or two before the overhead florescent lights did the same, though the air-conditioning didn’t seemed deterred in the slightest.

Pinkman hugged his arms close to his chest like he was chilled. “The thing with my aunt is just like the doctor is real far away and she lost her license ‘cause her eyesight is pretty bad. And it ain’t like I’m mad about chauffeuring her around like my name’s Jeeves since she lets me live with her. It’s just like she’s always wanting to do a puzzle or watch a home video of like her trip to Tampa or she wants to teach me how to bake some fancy key lime pie. Look, I’m sorry or whatever for like crashing in class again too. Is there some way I could…you know…make it up?”

Walt gave him a tight-lipped smile with his palms together, fighting the urge to reply with, “You could study,” because there seemed to be more going on with Pinkman than he was admitting. He didn’t think snarky was the appropriate response here, nor was his groin’s reaction to Pinkman’s vulnerability. The urge to touch himself was maddening.

“I can see that your home life sounds a little…hectic. Have you ever considered studying in a coffee shop or a library?” Walt shifted in his seat, mentally willing gravity to do _something_ with the deplorable, rigid throb in his Dockers. “This may sound overly simplistic, but a change of scenery can do wonders for the mind. There are countless examples in history of when people turned their lives around once they removed themselves from a chaotic environment or found refuge. I’m not saying you need to flee from imminent danger.”

Walt chuckled nervously. Where had that come from? What on earth was he implying? Was he even listening to whatever he was saying?

“But, finding someplace peaceful might be of help to you.”

Pinkman scrapped his teeth down his upper lip with his eyebrows raised and his gaze unfocused. Teetering on his sneakers, he pushed himself up and took a handful of steps in what Walt would have only been able to describe as a saunter.

He smiled. “Appreciate the whole library thing, Mr. White. But, like what about some…you know…extra credit?

Walt imagined framing Pinkman’s hands, slicking them up with his own natural—dripping on Jesse’s skin—lubrication, encouraging him with kisses along his throat. Pinkman would breath out a “You like that, Mr. White?” pronouncing the second vowel in “mister” with an elongated “ah” like he was channeling some nineteenth century, grimy street urchin trying to hawk him a newspaper. What was so _damn_ appealing about that?

It was still thundering intermediately.

Walt was sweating down the back of his dress shirt, felt as clouded as his windows, needed to say something.

“I’ve given extra credit projects on five occasions this semester and I didn’t see a single one from you.”

Pinkman shot him another smile, shakier this time around, and edged even closer towards the desk until his loose, light-washed jeans rustled the stack of third period lab reports. He placed his palm flat against an empty spot on the table.

“There ain’t any like other extra credit I could do?”

Walt leaned back in his chair. By god the images of his dream were pairing with Pinkman’s choice of words like the stomach-churning combination of old instant coffee and the even older pack of nearly-pulverized peanut butter Lance crackers he’d found under his desk. In his six years teaching, he’d never been propositioned, and he sure as hell never imagined it would be from someone like this skinny, blue-eyed, noticeably trembling hooligan.

“You know, like extra credit stuff,” Pinkman said, scooting his hand further up the desk.

The zipper to his jacket clinked against the black, soapstone surface. He smelled like sawdust and wood polish and cannabis and overpriced, trendy deodorant and desperation. His hand had met the lip of the desk closest to Walt and it repulsed him to feel himself drawn to those fingers, straining like kudzu scaling a wall in search of sunlight, decomposing brick and mortar in its wake.

Pinkman dipped his face down with an imploring, uncertain expression; chewing his lip again in a way that conveyed anxiety over seduction. “ _Extra_ credit, Mr. White, you know?”

Walt held Pinkman’s arm above the elbow and the kid went rigid all over with his torso then entirely braced against the desk. The kid was sprawled out like a defenseless kitten. He swallowed, _hard_ , and it was somewhat satisfying scaring this little punk for just a few blissful seconds. But, no matter how muddled his dream had made this encounter or how much his mouth wished to cover the rise of Jesse’s wobbly Adam’s apple, Walt would never resort to something so monstrous. He couldn’t. It was unethical.

He faintly rubbed his thumb into Pinkman’s sagging sleeve. “Write up a synopsis on tonight’s reading. We’ll go over it tomorrow and work from there. Does that sound reasonable?”

Pinkman was still for a beat, almost confused or maybe _disappointed_? Then he nodded, springing back up and blinking as if Walt had woken him again. He was slightly swinging his arms as he continued to nod with his lips pressed together.

“Cool, yeah,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”  

“Pinkman,” Walt said. He was already by the door with his book bag strap over one shoulder. Even though he looked as if he didn’t want to, he turned around. “Get some sleep, alright?”

He nodded and scrubbed at his nose. “Yeah, totally.”

Walt felt he should have been less surprised when he never saw that extra credit assignment. He didn’t see Pinkman for entire week. And it was in the parking lot, Pinkman’s back up against an older looking red Civic, cigarette between his lips and muffled rap music coming from the lowered windows, limp raise of his hand in Walt’s direction with a smug little nod.


	2. Chapter 2

_May 2009_

“Yo, place looks like some kid’s kept it inside a fucking time capsule.” Jesse’s voice sounded a good distance behind him; a raspy, somewhat listless chuckle. “I mean, like a real fucked up kid whose like super into moldy smells and ugly-ass beige walls and shit. Having fun, Mr. White?”

Walt turned from the chalkboard with the erasers clasped together in his hands and an incriminating white cloud dissipating around him. He’d stamped out a perfect nucleic acid double helix in chalk dust on the board before discovering that smacking the blocks together was oddly satiating. According to the clock, this had somehow gone on for half an hour.

“I was just sprucing the place up a little,” Walt said.

He was procrastinating. There was too much to do. Stacks of worksheets and make-up assignments congested the surface of his desk like confetti, only more disposable. He could have sworn his students’ I.Q.s were drooping lower than their jeans. And whoever Carmen had hired as his temporary replacement during the time Walt took off to recover from surgery had been inanely lenient in their grading. Walt genuinely wanted to know who this imbecile was, now having gone on to a new full-time position in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, though not before leaving behind a few phantom makings of a personality: two pairs of violet, left-handed scissors, a tear-off South Park calendar, and a plastic-framed photo of someone mysteriously concealed in a head-to-toe banana costume. This so-called “teacher” most certainly had a wad of mushy, potassium-rich pulp for brains to give a student like C.J. Waters a 92 for his lab report on plants cells that utilized the word “like” as often as a Valley girl/Jesse Pinkman hybrid.

Walt briefly pictured Jesse’s lips puffed out around a transparent-pink sphere of bubble gum and perhaps Walt had acclimating to an unfamiliar mattress to blame for such a baffling thought. Not to mention the image had Jesse in his clothes from before. The ones he was wearing now were much less ridiculous, though a little plain: solid red shirt, dark jeans that fit him correctly, and nondescript sneakers. It was the kind of outfit Walt associated with an ex-con, kind of grab-and-go items. He felt almost nostalgic for the skulls and multi-colored dragons.

“So, sprucing up means cleaning erasers like you’re a nine-year-old getting like punished in a black-and-white movie?” Jesse smirked and absently tapped at one of the Styrofoam hydrogen atoms to a model that was erroneously six hydrogens short of a molecule of Prozac.

Walt wiped his hands clean on his trousers. “ _You’ve_ seen a black-and-white film?”

Jesse shrugged as he looked up from a poor Play-Doh attempt at carbon dioxide. “I used to have grandparents, you know.”

He traced his fingers around the base of a Bunsen burner, and spoke almost as softly as the igniting hiss of the gas. “Sort of used to have parents too.”

Walt didn’t know what to make of that, nodded slowly even though Jesse wasn’t facing him, and decided taking another stab at Cindy’s definition of mitochondria seemed a more favorable alternative to saying anything. They hadn’t done a whole lot of talking since Jesse had left rehab. No, Walt had divorce papers and Skyler and preparation for final exams to deal with.

He scrawled out an 85 at the top of Cindy’s assignment. “Is there something I should be alarmed about?”

Jesse idly dragged his hand across the surface of each lab table he passed, walking deeper into the room, encroaching on Walt’s territory.

He nodded to something to the left of Walt. “Supposed to be so hot today we’re in ‘orange,’ which is like bad for old people, right?”

Walt had completely forgotten he’d yet to push the clunky television cart back into his storage closet. A weather report was playing on mute. The plump man on screen was gesturing to an animated sun grinning in a red Hawaiian shirt despite missing a torso. It was disgusting. Temperatures this high had the potential to kill people.

“That the same Sonny piece of shit from like the ‘90s?”

Jesse had pulled up a chair to one of the front row tables, sitting perfectly upright like an eager first semester freshman. The sight was startling. There was something unsettling about Jesse’s presence that Walt couldn’t quite identify. He was reluctant to label it as some sort of Venn diagram scenario—two separate areas of his life overlapping—because Jesse had belonged here long before the RV and the methamphetamine and the girl. It didn’t mean Walt wanted him there again. But, Jesse seemed to _want_ to irritate Walt, and it was an improvement over having to listen to Jesse’s newly-learned, dead-eyed, despondent life lessons like Jesse was in the midst of making a series of clinically depressed fortune cookies. Still, a fragment of one of those cookies seemed wedged between his teeth and jabbing him in the gums. It made him uncomfortable behind his desk.

“So aside from my alleged geriatric state of health, is there anything else I should be worrying about?”

“What do you mean?” Jesse drummed his thumbs against the table.

Walt drew an “X” over anther wrong answer. “Is there a pressing matter you need to address with me?”

Jesse seemed utterly perplexed. Confusion: a look that’d had residence in this classroom maybe even longer than the pull-down Periodic table projector screen. Jesse’s own facial take on it usually included a scrunched nose, brows coming together, and his eyes slitting. Depending on the circumstances, Walt found the expression either irritating or perhaps, to a degree, moderately endearing, though on a muddled level he hadn’t exactly inspected under a magnifying glass. With so much tedious bullshit to get through, he just wanted Jesse to catch a damn hint all ready.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh,” Jesse said. His glance dropped. He rubbed the heel of his hand into his chin. “I uh, went to a meeting a few blocks over on Mazorca Drive, you know like by that sketchy-as-shit Family Dollar that you like never see anyone go into and their sign’s busted as hell and just reads “Fam Doll” at night. Joint seriously might be a front for some sort of underground sex shit or something. But, uh, I was driving by and thought I’d like pop in…and see…what you wanted for dinner.”

Walt found it hard to overlook how domestic that sounded. He couldn’t remember the last time Skyler had asked him something like that, back when those kinds of questions were still posed with a kiss, light hand on his chest, and sometimes a sarcastic quip about soon-to-be-expired chicken breasts and his rising cholesterol.

He slipped a wad of graded quizzes inside their designated folder. “I didn’t realize we had plans.”

“We don’t. It’s just like you’re letting me crash at your place, and since it’s Wednesday and everything I didn’t think you’d be going anywhere, and I thought having the food ready for you when you got off would be like a nice…you know, hump day treat or whatever.”

Jesse spastically smacked his elbow against the table. “ _Shit_.” He scratched at his ear. “Hump day: that’s like slang for Wednesday, like hump like a hump in the road like a road bump…hump…you know.”

“Yes, Jesse. It’s a colloquialism I hear quite often.”

Walt smiled at the returning crease above Jesse’s nose. He even set his Sharpie aside.

“Colloquialism is another term for a saying, kind of like slang.”

Jesse scrubbed at his bony, little arm, scorpion tattoo writhing about. “It’s slang for what?”

He shook his head. “Never mind.”

Grabbing ahold of the marker again, he flipped open the cover to the closest lab book. It was Grady Macintyre’s. He was the blond sophomore who’d recently transferred from an East Coast private school, showed a lot of promise academically, but tended to correct other students in class. It didn’t make him very popular. And his handwriting was appalling.

“So, what exactly is on the Jesse Pinkman menu?”

Jesse chuckled. “Mr. White, you make it sound like I got a menu with me on it, like ‘Get a slab of ribs with your choice of fingers or knees or like substitute calf muscles for a buck extra.’ Reminds me of that episode of _The Twilight Zone_ where like the aliens got this book called, uh….”

“To Serve Man,” Walt said. He turned to the next page and tried to decipher whatever in the _world_ was at the top. “It’s a classic. Everyone assumes the phrasing ‘To Serve Man’ is in their best interests only to learn that—”

“—those sons of bitches want to eat them.” Jesse laughed. “Yeah, that’s like my favorite episode. I used to watch that show all the time. Back in high school, I’d go over to Badger’s and we’d watch it in his basement and go through like an entire bag of Oreos with peanut butter on them ‘cause we were like _so_ fucking blazed. His mom would get pretty pissed if we got any crumbs on her fucking pink leather couch. _Shit_ , that thing like always smelled like Band-Aids and gas station bean burritos. One time I ate three plates of pizza rolls and totally puked up so much marinara his mom thought someone fucking murdered Badger. Then she found out it was vomit and she like almost straight-up killed me; lady was mean, but a total fox. She wore these skirts so tight you could like make out the dimples on her ass. I dropped acid there my first time and I was convinced she was walking outside in a bikini with the solar system on it and she had a Chihuahua on a leash, but it was like a tree or something.”

Walt was moving on to the next report on pH testing. Even without looking up from his work he could detect a slightly wistful tone in Jesse’s prattling. It struck him that it had been since, well, before the most recent occurrences that he’d heard Jesse talk like this, opening his mouth and letting the words plink out in a rush like a coin-operated candy machine. If you chose the right topic, Jesse was sure to verbally heave on you like a torrent of Skittles.

“But, uh, if you’re asking me what I know how to make, then I guess that’d be like mostly frozen stuff and cereal and sandwiches. I can do hot dogs, juevos rancheros, and uh, tacos too.” He sniffed and coughed, sniffed again—wetter sounding—and Walt wondered if the boy had allergies.

“No thanks, Jesse.”

“I could order a pizza if you’re down. Like, I’m always up for pizza.”

Walt adjusted his glasses as he crossed through every word in a paragraph of some half-brained endeavor at illustrating the dangers of high mercury levels. “Extra peperoni, no Canadian bacon, and none of that fake cheese in the crust.”

The bottom of Jesse’s tennis shoe squeaked against the polished concrete. “Yeah, right on, man. Right on.”

He waited for Jesse to continue, but when that didn’t happen, he finally looked over to see Jesse eyeing the still silent television. The local news was reporting something called a speed-puzzle competition in Santa Fe, which was apparently a convention room full of grown adults feverishly assembling puzzles while being timed by other grown adults with stopwatches.

Jesse nodded to the screen. “My aunt would have loved this shit. She once put this 3D puzzle of the Eiffel Tower with like a thousand pieces together in like, I swear, forty-five minutes.”

“Impressive,” Walt said. He cracked open yet another lab report and wanted to chuck the thing across the room when he noted it was written completely in faint, violet ink. Three sentences in and he really did want to hurl the pages directly out the window. “Do you need any money for the pizza?”

“Nah,” Jesse said.

“Are you sure?”

Walt glanced up long enough to see Jesse smile weakly. “Yo, I got this one.”

“All right, I should be back in another hour, hour and a half if that helps you decide when you’d like to order it.”

“Cool.”

Walt thanked whatever god existed that this purple piece of shit was an incomplete assignment, running at only a single page. The next two were encouragingly coherent, and it wasn’t until he reached across his stapler for the in-class partner work he needed to assess that he realized Jesse was still there. The boy was contentedly watching Maury on mute, the sort of drivel that Walt Jr. had recently taken a shine to. Walt couldn’t grasp how the punchline of “You are _not_ the father” was so enthralling. The show was a clowned-up paternity test. He certainly didn’t understand why Jesse was watching it in his classroom, and he felt that any veiled pleasantries would only spin them back into the same conversational orbit from before.

Walt tapped his stack of papers against the desk. “Jesse, what are you doing here?”

A fleeting wounded dart of Jesse’s eyes before they honed in on the floor. “Well since I got all this time now not cooking….”

Jesse’s jaw locked up as she shifted it back and forth, like he was chewing on the double-meaning of those words. “…cooking dinner, thought I’d chill here or whatever for a while. I got nothing going on, so you know, why not?”

“I still have a considerable amount of work to finish,” Walt said. He couldn’t decide if he should be annoyed or concerned with Jesse wanting to “chill” with him. And really, in matters regarding Jesse, when had that dichotomy _not_ been the debate in his mind?

“Yo, I’ll be super quiet…just watching my show, like seriously I promise.”

Walt straightened his arm out with his palm against the desk, pleasantly popping the joint of his elbow. There was something about the sunlight in the room now that made it really bleed over the boy’s face. Yes, he looked clean and sober and healthy. His eyes weren’t glazed over or red. But he still looked tired.

“Why don’t you get some sleep? You seem like you could use a nap. Hell, take my bed if the couch is what’s keeping you up. I know it’s not the most comfortable thing in the world.”

“I can’t,” Jesse said. He ducked his chin a little, nostrils twitching, and he sniffed. “I uh, can’t go to sleep right now.”

Jesse sucked his bottom lip in along with a rickety breath. “Mr. White, can I please stay here? Like I know you’ve been doing me a lot of favors recently, like paying for rehab and letting me live with you. Just can you do me one more solid and like not kick me out?”

Walt fidgeted with a “Good Job” stamp that had yet been uncapped let alone used. Jesse was just ever- so-slightly starting to shake. The kid’s tell-tale ticks of an emotional breakdown were as ominous and obvious as a funneling cloud formulation in the distance. Walt wasn’t equipped to quell a tornado, so he aimed to dodge the rain before it started.

Opening a drawer to his left, he snatched the pack of Scooby-Doo fruit snacks he’d confiscated from a freshman in his second period and tossed them to Jesse who fumbled with the follow-up catch with a hiccup. “Try not to drop any. I don’t want ants again.”

Jesse nodded and swiped a hand across his face. Walt looked to be in the clear. He began marking up the first of the partner assignments on the properties of buffers and titrations. Other than some intermediate crinkling, Jesse kept his promise of remaining quiet long enough for Walt to move on to his remaining heap of a week’s worth of homework for two different periods.

Jesse snorted. “Dude seriously needs a new wardrobe.”

Walt snapped his head up and Jesse made an embarrassed “o” with his mouth, a vaguely ameba-shaped green gelatin set to pop between his lips.

“Yo, sorry,” he whispered.

Walt caught the last second or two of Saul’s outlandish commercial that Jesse had been referring to and he couldn’t really blame him for saying something. The man had the tackiest tastes in clothing this side of Elton John.

He did a double-take at the top right corner of the paper in front of him and didn’t recognize the name Cody Lindbergh. It took him far too long to remember that Darren Lindberg from his senior AP class went by his middle name. Something seemed to connect there. He recalled meeting Saul for the first time and how Saul had admitted that it wasn’t his real name. Squinting at the television, he tried to breakdown this new thought process winding itself inside him as if on its own free will. Wasn’t Saul’s birth name actually John or Jimmy? It was something Irish, so Irish that it came across even phonier than the fake one. Why was he picturing “Jimmy McGill” as a headline? Walt vaguely remembered a news story on a man named Jimmy McGill pulling a man from a car or maybe giving him CPR or some form of first aid. He doubted the two were related.

Pushing that mental distraction aside—he was musing on Saul Goodman’s past and that was never a favorable sign—Walt proceeded with his Sharpie.

Once there was only last night’s homework left, he triumphantly capped his marker and just then noticed it was dark out. Jesse was out for the count as well. He had his face practically plastered to the desk, spindly arms stretched out with his hands limp down the front. As Walt returned the television cart to his closet and packed his suitcase, he had to stop himself from barking out an admonishing “ _Pinkman_.”

He coughed. “Jesse.”

Trying to make more obvious, obnoxious clicks and snaps with the clasps of his briefcase and even banging it a little on the board behind him, he stepped around his desk and coughed once more.

“Jesse.”

Nothing. Jesse didn’t stir. His mouth was partially open.

Walt walked closer and reached out to nudge him. His chest constricted, acidic burn at the back of his throat, and his head was fuzzy.

No.

It had been too soon.

He could picture it: shaking Jesse hard by the shoulder, the girl rolling on her back, that decision to not reach out to her. She had been just an arm’s length away.

He found his own arm drifting towards Jesse until his hand was hovering over warmth and spikes of hair too soft for someone who acted so prickly. He hesitated only momentarily before easing his fingers in the downy texture, fingertips on Jesse’s scalp, stroking with the grain as if he were waking his son for school.

Jesse murmured something, tongue flicking across his lips.

Walt wondered if somewhere in Jesse’s subconscious he was thinking about the girl, his mind superimposing the feeling of leaner fingers, longer nails, a lighter touch in place of Walt’s hand.

He made that sound again. It was almost a moan. And, Walt couldn’t believe the visual that clicked into his memory so readily like a glass slide under a microscope. Jesse had been with him when he’d seen the story on Jimmy McGill. Jesse had stayed after school so Walt could reprimand him. Jesse had tried to weasel his way out of his poor attendance and grades with the promise of…sexual favors.

“You petting me?” Jesse’s voice was slow, thick, gritty, but not upset. One blue eye was peeping open.

Walt was indeed petting him, gently palming Jesse’s skull like he was holding a piece of fruit or maybe as if he were intending to draw Jesse closer to his fly. Blinking harshly, he tried to claw that thought out of his skull. But, it was there. He felt it almost like he felt the blood in his veins amalgamating at his crotch.

Then Jesse was tipping his head deeper into Walt’s hand with his eyelids closed again. He sighed out a “Feels nice.”

Walt was bombarded with a graphic overview of the past six months or so: Jesse in his boxers as he tumbled off the roof, Jesse balled up and spooned up behind him on their cots during those dreadful four days in the RV, Jesse with his arms around him and fervently clutching at his back in that godforsaken crack den and letting Walt touch him so openly. And now, even without the presence of dirty mattresses and strung-out junkies around them, he was letting Walt touch him instead of jerking away with another homophobic slur. Jesse was letting Walt touch him and Walt wanted to. He didn’t know how to process that.

“ _Yo_ ,” Jesse said. He almost whined, raising his back up like a cat. “Why’d you stop?”

Walt registered his hand had paused and took the opportunity to pull back completely before he had a chance to do something stupid.

He knocked his briefcase against the ledge of the lab table, and tried to keep his voice even. “You’re drooling. Let’s go.”

“Dick.” Jesse grumbled, both eyes opening with a sleepy smile: effortless, drowsy sex appeal oozing from him as freely as his salivary glands. “Yo, how weird is it that I passed out in your class again?”

Walt simply strolled across the room, flicked off the overhead lights and was making his way out the door as he heard “ _Yo_ ” before the quick trod of footfalls and ragged breathing and “You’re such a dick.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to give too much away in this note, but Steven Bernard is a character from the HBO show "Eastbound and Down" and I "borrowed" him even though he teaches in Shelby, North Carolina, which is a long ways from the ABQ. Also, the word "necking" is dated slang for making out/fooling around. I like to use it because it's from Walt's era and maybe I've read too many books/biographies set in the 1960s and 1970s.

Jesse’s legs were spread wide.

Walt had never noticed the habit before. But a denim-clad knee was pressed into his outer thigh. The bony thing was repeatedly shifting and rolling against Walt almost as if it were on some sort of preprogramed track like the gliding inner mechanism to a massage chair. His living room lights were off, just the kitchen one vaguely in his periphery with the glint of the television in front of them.  

Walt was channel surfing: a cooking show with sautéed broccoli in mid-leap from a skillet, trite crime drama darkened in hues of navy, a string of bleeding, wine-colored headlined news reports on the incident, the occasional shockingly bright blip of a children’s program, then nothing but a black screen with a vaguely familiar song swelling.

“Yo, stop.”

He hadn’t thought the virtually imperceptible, receptive push of his leg back into Jesse, that nonverbal yearning for friction, had been enough to warrant rebuke.

Jesse’s mouth was full of pizza. “It was _The Godfather_. Go back, man.”

A few pushes of the remote and a man’s face coming into focus. “I believe in America.” Walt was just thirteen when this was released in theatres.

“Never got around to watching this one,” Walt said.  

Jesse’s head tilted in apparent fascination. “Mr. White, you are a sad, sick son of a bitch.”

“That so, huh?”

\---

Time passed at a suspiciously brisk tempo for a sun-soaked Thursday. The weather was so blatantly nice Walt found it difficult to blame his students for gawking out the windows with most likely rollerblades and ice cream sandwiches taking precedence over solubility equilibrium. Last night had gone on longer than he’d anticipated.

He and Jesse had practically gorged themselves on greasy, extra-pepperoni pizza. The film had been fantastic, better than _Scarface._ Maybe four or five scenes in, Walt noted Jesse’s knee animating whenever something significant happened. During the infamous beheaded horse scene, Walt even lightly palmed the joint as if to calm it. Jesse had sheepishly peeked over at him before shifting over a smidge. A few seconds later, the knee was back, more firmly even, and Walt kept his hands to himself.

After the movie, they had discussed it for almost an hour while Walt feigned interest in the background presence of a basketball game and sipped on some scotch. He’d been mildly tipsy when he’d clapped Jesse on the shoulder during their exchanges of “Goodnight,” “’Night, Mr. White.” And there was something about Jesse’s blush-tinged smile that fueled Walt with a mysterious surge of adrenaline and managed to get him through his first six periods, planning hour, and right into his last class with only a single thermos of coffee. He tried to convince himself it was nothing more than the fruits of enjoying an evening that didn’t involve any phone calls on his burner phone or brainstorming dialogue for some of the inevitable conversations with Skyler. He had been relaxed and was now rejuvenated. There was nothing else to dwell on.

Walt crooked an eyebrow and adjusted the overhead projector while his brain practically screamed “ _Yeah right_.”

He had less than five minutes before the bell and a room full of Honors Organic Chemistry students furiously transcribing notes as if the Vis-à-Vis chemical equations were going to spontaneously disappear. Sarah, one of his brightest pupils, was quietly explaining something to the French foreign exchange student in the next seat. Having some time to kill, he put away a set of beakers and overheard Sarah whisper, “Is it just me or is he acting like he has a _slightly_ smaller stick up his ass today?” The response was in French and then they were both speaking French, and Walt was more than a little offended by the accusation, but not entirely surprised.

He leaned against one of the lab benches on the right side of the room and did a scan just to make sure no one was doing anything idiotic. A few rows to his left, two boys in J.P. Wynne-brand gym shorts and t-shirts—ready for after-school football practice for tomorrow’s home game against one of the schools with a bird mascot Walt couldn’t place a name to—were laughing softly. Ryan was still at a seventy-degree angle over his binder, scribbling away with his pen. But, Paul seemed to have finished and was responsible for most of the snickering. His hand was underneath the desk and Walt could hear him whisper, “You nervous, man?”

Ryan shook his head and flipped a page so covered in notes it was practically wrinkled with ink before starting on a new sheet. “I’m so gonna win this one. It’s not even funny.”

Paul slouched down, arm shifting in a direction that made Walt feel fairly certain of the location of his hand. “Nervous now?” Paul made another slight movement about as subtle as a flexed muscle. “How ‘bout”—

A set of metal chair legs shrieking against concrete gained everyone’s attention for only a few alarmed, neck-craned seconds before they began to pack their book bags. Paul had been the one to abruptly pull away with a parting hiss of “Yeah, you win, bro. Congrats on the boner.” And Ryan practically sprinted out the door, Global History textbook guardedly in front of him, the second the bell rang.

Walt was disturbed though moderately curious about what he’d just observed.

He collected the extra copies of his handouts around the room as students left, several wishing him a good afternoon, and he lost count of the blue ribbons pined to tank tops and t-shirts he saw pass by. It seemed as if they had bracelets and pins and damn sashes for everything these days as if stamping yourself with _this_ cause or _that_ disaster made any sincere difference. The whole thing was a twisted marketing ploy disguised as raising awareness. Walt wanted no part in it.

The halls were emptying with the departing clang of lockers so Walt fished his wallet out from his briefcase and headed to the vending machine around the corner by the back exit. While caffeine wasn’t a necessity, he wanted something cold on his throat.

“Look who decided to stop playing hooky.”

Walt shut his eyes tight. He didn’t need to see the person behind him for identification. Despite being in his late thirties, Steven Bernard had the lisp of a four-year-old and about as much social decorum. The man was in fact “playfully” jostling him by the nape of his neck. If he was anything other than the band instructor, Walt would have been deeply troubled with J.P. Wynne’s hiring choices.  

Walt rotated his shoulders, shaking off this ridiculous greeting while simultaneously trying not to goad Steven with a reaction. Turning on his heel, Walt plastered on a polite smile.

He’d never been more thankful for Wynne’s lack of Casual Fridays. Steven, center part in his hair, wore dated ‘90s business attire like he hadn’t gone clothes shopping since his mother assisted him post-graduation. He could only assume Steven’s definition of casualwear included a closetful of bowling shirts and jean shorts. No one needed to see that.

Steven arched his arms back like a bird readying for flight, the wide short sleeves of his button-down fanning out like a pair of beige wings. “How is it goin’ on, Mr. White?”

“Fine, Steven. I’m doing a whole lot better. And, please, feel free to call me Walt.”

“Hell yeah, Mr. Walt,” he said, smacking him on the shoulder. “Heard you went and beat the shit out of cancer, kicked its fucking ass. That’s totally killer. But, I knew you could do it since you’re a scientist and everything. And my man, did you _show_ everybody at that assembly last week. You should have dropped that microphone. Speaking truth, _son_.”

He made a fist and mimed releasing something to the floor, laughing at his own joke, and Walt tried not to fixate on the promising idea of grabbing him by his outlandishly short checkered tie and slamming his head into the Coco-Cola machine.

“Well, I’m not cured. I still have cancer, just in remission. I’m not out of the woods by any means.”

There was a familiarity in this exchange. It was eerily reminiscent of when he first relayed this information to Jesse months ago. And while it was perfectly sensible for Walt to have a so-to-speak script for things like this now, he was bothered hearing such “Jesse” vernacular in Steven’s similar reaction. Maybe it had to do with how Jesse was still in his twenties or it was in his presentation or—and the acknowledgement even to himself was a sensation akin to grating sandpaper between his molars—perhaps it was Jesse’s inherent charm that helped him really sell the image. He wore it well.

Walt could almost feel a mouth along the edge of his ear, stubble scratching the back of his neck, and “You like that, _Mr. White_?”

He tried to remain stoic in spite of the horripilation popping up and across his arms like a rash.

“I’m sure you’ll be great, Mr. Walt.” Steven grinned. “Also, you should definitely hit me up tomorrow if you wanna get in on the faculty pre-game party at Chili’s. I mean we always go baller on Fridays, but this is the first home game since the whole airplane thing, so we are gonna go _all out_. What do you think? I’ll buy the first round of kamikazes.”

Walt made a noncommittal _hum_ and slid his wallet into his back pocket because he’d given up on the prospect of a soda.

“I’ll see how the day goes,” he said.

Steven pointed at him. “Sounds good, compadre.”

Walt nodded and strode down the hall as quickly as possible without breaking into a damn jog. Once he was safely inside his darkened classroom, he secured the door shut just to be safe, lowered the blinds of the bordering window, and whipped around to a spectacle he was entirely unprepared for.

Jesse was sitting on the lip of his desk, holding a cone of what looked to be butter pecan ice cream, licking a milky drip trickling down his tattoo. Walt assumed it was the combination of thin t-shirt cotton and being in the direct glow of the overhead projector that allowed him such a clear view of Jesse’s nipples. That in and of itself may have not been so absurdly intriguing if not for the dragon peeking through. The scorpion and the dragon: it was the makings of an Aesop’s fable on flesh.

“Yo, you got to get this. ‘Bout to melt all over me.” He smiled with the tip of his tongue still obscenely lapping at his wrist. “Swear I didn’t eat any of it. Ate mine. This one’s all you.”

Walt flicked the light back on and was in front of Jesse faster than he’d ever admit. He didn’t even wait for Jesse to reach out before delicately pinching the base of the sticky, cake cone and bringing it to his mouth. Biting into a heavenly morsel of roasted pecans, he perhaps grunted just a tad.

Jesse was beaming. “Your favorite, right?”

“How’d…you know that?” This frozen concoction was delicious: dense and rich, the pecans not in the least soggy.             

He shrugged. “You like mentioned it once when we were cooking. It was like a real hot day and you said you could really go for some butter pecan since you dig it and all.”

Walt was more attuned with the surprising cinnamon flavor of this impossibly crunchy cone than the current state of his facial expression. However, Jesse laughed.

“Shit’s dope as hell. I got birthday cake with sprinkles and almost creamed my pants on the drive over.”

Walt dabbed at his lips with the back of his hand. “That sounds about right.”

“Yo, which part?” Jesse squinted. “Getting birthday cake ice cream or jizzing my pants?”

With the last large hunk of cone in his mouth, all Walt could manage was the universal hand gesture for “give me a second” while he struggled to swallow it down.

Jesse clapped him on the arm. “No worries, man. Let me save you the energy. You think I’m like eight years old, so like of course I got birthday cake flavor and sprinkles. Ha-ha-ha, I’m immature, yeah whatever, and you’re a douche.”

Walt popped him right back on his elbow with a smile, mouth a little numb and cold but clear of food. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

He scratched at his jaw, smirking at the floor more so than Walt, and sat up a little straighter. “Yeah, anyways, I got the ice cream at this new joint that’s like five minutes away from here. It’s called Helado Paridise. They got this giant pink ice cream cone with angel wings out front flipping a sign. I’d never been before, but it was close to my meeting.”

“I thought you already went to a meeting this morning.” He stepped around his desk to settle down in his chair because he still had a lot to do.

Jesse stood, facing the door, and plucked at his lip. “Yeah, it’s just…some days are like harder or whatever.”

“I see,” he said.

He thumbed through a folder at random and contemplated asking Jesse if he wanted to talk about it. Walt never was one to toe that line between overprotective-mind-your-own-damn-business-Mr.-White and apathetic prick with much grace. And he had a hunch that he tended to lean toward the latter.

“Yo, is there anything I could do…like around here to help you out?”

Taking a second to actually read what was inside the folder in his hands Walt recognized this morning’s pop quiz on acids and bases. It was for his three freshman periods. With approximately thirty students per class, he was looking at nearly a hundred quizzes.

He extended the folder to Jesse. “You could grade these for me.”

Jesse shot him a pointed look and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, _sure,_ Mr. White.”

“No, I’m serious. They’re all the same assignment, multiple-choice.” He tapped the top sheet. “And it’s one I’ve used for years so I already have a key of sorts here. It’ll be menial and dry, but it would also save me a great deal of time.”

He took the folder with a shrug before he was smiling much too interestedly for busywork. “Yo, can I use one of your scary red Sharpies?”

“Knock yourself out,” Walt said. He plucked one from the collection in Walt Jr.’s “hilarious” Father’s Day present from last year: a navy mug with the words “World’s Most Kind of Alright Dad” in white block letters.

Jesse appeared to read it as he snatched the marker, but he didn’t comment. Planting both hands on the closest lab table, he hopped over it with much more surefootedness than he would have ever given the boy credit for. Jesse even looked rather smug when he hunkered down in his chair.

Walt sighed and started entering the results to last Wednesday’s tests into his grade book.

Jesse chuckled. “This is for real some _Twilight Zone_ shit. I mean, I’m in your class with all the answers to a quiz. It’s like I got the golden fucking ticket. If I was still in high school, I’d be so stoked I’d like, I don’t know, like….”

“Cream your pants?” Walt peered at him over his glasses. “That seems to be a trend with you. You might want to see a doctor about that.”

He flipped Walt off, still smiling, and popped the marker cap off with his teeth like a barbarian. Walt just shook his head and wondered if there’d ever be a day when he wouldn’t have to log so many sixties and seventies. These test scores were abysmal.

He’d made it down to _Heffner, Elizabeth_ , one of his rare ninety-fives, when his door clanked open.

“ _Oh_ ,” Carmen said. She was wearing a purple, silky-looking dress, heels, and a tense sort of smile. “Walter, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to pass along an invitation to the faculty outing at Chili’s before the game tomorrow. We’re all so happy to see you again. Let me know if you need any more details. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Carmen nodded at Jesse and stage-whispered, “Good luck with your test.”

She slid the doorjamb in place and left with a cheery wave before Walt could do more than sit dumb with his mouth open.

“ _Fuck_.” Jesse snickered behind his knuckles. “That chick totally thought I was your student.”

Jesse frowned. “Do I seriously look that young?”

His t-shirt was black, had a V-neck that showed just a sliver of his collarbone, and Walt guessed kids were getting inked younger and younger. Walt really hadn’t a clue what Carmen was thinking. It was difficult imagining Jesse from another’s perspective.

Walt dismissively waved him off. “That ‘ _chick_ ’ is the school principal.”

Jesse made some sort of slack-jawed, clownish face of amused shock before laughing again. “Well, you should probably talk to her because she _so_ just pulled like a child-protective-services on your ass.”

“What are you talking about?”    

“Um, _hello_ ; the door,” Jesse said, squinting, and nodding his head back. “She kept it open like she was worried you’d get, you know…handsy or something. Or like I’d try to blackmail you and like _say_ you got handsy. ‘Cause one of the most like solid ways to get out of bogusly diddling somebody is telling the judge the door was all copacetic and open and shit. It’s like a case-winner for sure.”

Walt pinched the pressure point between his forefinger and thumb because he felt a headache coming on trying to translate the subtleties behind what Jesse had said. He wasn’t quite sure if there was anything to analyze in the first place.

“You seem to know a lot about sexual misconduct policy. Have you been using your free time to drop in on Saul as well?”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck with an elbow on the desk in front of him. “I mean, I talked to the guy yesterday, but not about this stuff. I’ve just seen like a shit-load of _Judge Judy_.”

Walt was well aware that television courtroom shows of that nature weren’t allowed to take on cases of sexual wrongdoings. They were hardly small claims courts. People like Judge Judy were simply arbitrators frilled-up with bells and whistles. No, there wasn’t any doubt that Jesse must have done some research. Walt just wasn’t sure if he wanted to know _when_.

He would leave it alone.

Concentrating on the task at hand, Walt began recording grades again. It didn’t take him long before he could finally close the damn thing up for the evening. Jesse appeared to still have a few quizzes left and Walt noticed he was writing something on the top of the paper.

He must have felt Walt watching him, because he was looking at him too with a kind of guilty smile. “Hope it’s cool I added some like Walter White flare.”

Jesse held up the paper he’d been marking. In a severe red scrawl was “Not Even Close” next to a grade that indicated the student had only three correct answers out of a possible fifteen.

“Just thought it’d make it more legit, you know,” Jesse said. He chewed on the corner of his mouth. “Plus, it feels pretty like cathartic or whatever. The dude at rehab suggested like planting flowers or taking on a new hobby to…help with…stuff.”

He breathed out a chuckle and fondly regarded the quiz in his hand. “Think I like this a little more than gardening.”

Walt made a show out of nodding pleasantly. “You’re welcome.”

Jesse closed one eye, being equally dramatic with his wince. “Don’t go and ruin it, asshole.”

“Can we cool it with the language? There could be students out in the hall.”

Jesse had swiftly gone back to slandering high school students via permanent marker.

“Yo, no matter what that hot-ass principal thinks, I ain’t one of your students anymore.”

And, as if he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, he lifted the Sharpie like he was going to chew on the end in the same manner Walt had seen many do while distracted. It was exactly what he did. He slid it between his teeth like a cigar, both hands busy collecting papers to clap the stack against the desk.

Just barely muffled around the plastic obstruction, Jesse smiled and said, “So, you can bite me, Mr. White.”

He’d become rather familiar with the euphemism, had heard Jesse say it before, but not like this: without even a drip of venom behind it. Nor had Jesse ever followed it up with a cautious glance as if he wanted to make sure Walt knew that all was in jest. Certainly, Walt had never smiled encouragingly, because he would have witnessed Jesse’s flush of relief, and a grin that was both infectious and chillingly flirtatious.

 _Was_ the boy flirting with him?

Standing from his desk, Walt ruminated on the hollowly reassuring mantra of “Leave it, Walt. Leave it alone” as he straightened his Father’s Day mug, as he grabbed his briefcase, as he brushed off the eraser fragments scattered across the black surface like the shredded stuffing of a falling airline seat. He tried to convince himself he had any intention of doing so: of leaving it alone, of leaving Jesse alone.  

Walt pushed his chair forward. “What sounds good for dinner?”

\---

Walking, speaking, and now touching. Jesse was practically a sleep-triathlete. Walt wondered if the drugs were at fault.

He hadn’t meant to interrupt.

Walt was on exam prep-time, needing to leave the house well before the sun rose when traffic was nonexistent, newspapers were being tossed into driveways, and no one else in this apartment complex appeared to be alive. With suitcase in hand and his bagged lunch in the other, Walt was feeling exhausted and generous enough to tiptoe across his own damn living room in an Elmer Fudd fashion he wasn’t exceptionally proud of. He stumbled over the heel of Jesse’s sneaker. The kid was so skinny he didn’t even look like he was there.

Walt tried to take proper stock of the room despite the dimness. Coffee table: clean aside from a half-empty drinking glass. His forthcoming path from here to the door was clear of Jesse’s clothes. The sofa: dangling throw blanket and a Jesse-shaped depression.

A half-naked figure was sluggishly approaching him.

“Where’re the popsicles?”

Walt hadn’t bought ice pops since Walt Jr. was maybe eleven.

Jesse’s eyes were shut, shuffling forward, and Walt had never seen anyone sleepwalk before.

“You eat the last one?”                                                                                            

Walt thought Jesse was in the process of keeling over, reached for the boy, just as he felt Jesse’s lips smudge across his neck. His hand was swirling very low on Walt’s back. Jesse’s mouth gained enough traction to pucker, probing flutter of a tongue just a slip or two shy of Walt’s throbbing carotid artery. Walt was sure there was merit in the adage of never disturbing a sleepwalker. He only tipped his head slightly, held his breath, fingers cinching around his paper lunchsack when Jesse sucked at a long neglected, sensitive spot.

These sorts of small, soft, necking nuances had been lost in his bedroom life long before his hair.      

Jesse nuzzled his shoulder with a parting peck, slumped upright like a drooping jack-in-the-box, and padded past him.

He was on the couch, stomach-first with a grunt.

“You comin’?” It was muffled by his pillow, listless with Walt assumed to be the creeping onslaught of slumber. “Babe?”

Jesse’s hand reached out to the open space next to him, voice hitching, a shudder running down him.

“Babe?”

Walt folded the blanket back over Jesse; let him sob this one out. Waking him would be unwise. He didn’t want to embarrass the boy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this story was a family, this chapter would be the black-sheep crackhead whose always driving their car into birdbaths and eats all of the marshmallows off the sweet potatoes every Thanksgiving. Like I wanted to do something a little weird and just went for it. The next chapter is on way less crack, I promise :)

“All right, let’s just clear the bullshit,” Jesse said, gesticulating meaninglessly with his arms. “Yes, Mr. White, I’ve been in here before. _No_ , I wasn’t lost. And, yeah that rumor’s true: I _did_ finger-bang Kristen Long in the like biography section senior year, first semester. So, you’re like shit out of douchebag jokes now.”

Walt had never been drunk in the J.P. Wynne library before.

It was disconcerting how a room that hadn’t been remodeled in decades could appear so suddenly different. He didn’t recall it smelling this strongly of mildew. The fluorescent squares over their heads, checkered among dingy, fiberboard lay-in ceiling tiles were much more muted than they were in the hallways and classrooms. It gave the space a kind of stale, sour atmosphere, somewhere people went to naturally mold-over and decompose behind the pixelated glow of outdated computers. And, there were only three monitors: IBM, light grey, larger than most televisions. The carpet was a purple-ish maroon, clashing in a cartoonish nature with the pastel yellow walls. An art student in the mid-90s had, after some misguided faculty support, tried to liven the place up by painting multi-colored polka dots everywhere. And with the liquor in his system, he realized that all the addition really did was transform the room into an Easter egg. Walt was standing inside a fucking musty Easter egg on a damn Saturday.

“You know, I think I caught wind of something along those lines in the teacher’s lounge.” He handed Jesse a clipboard. “Kristen Long: volleyball or cheerleading?”

“Cheerleader,” Jesse said.

“She in uniform?” He divided a small stack of notebook paper between them and clasped a portion to his own clipboard.

Jesse wiped at his mouth, squinting. “Well, like _most_ of it.”

Walt smiled. “Lucky son of a bitch.”

“ _Yo,_ ” Jesse said. He was staring at Walt with a perplexing degree of scrutiny. “Are you hammered right now?”

“I’ve had a _few_ drinks. It’s Saturday.” He shrugged.

Jesse snorted, though he didn’t look very amused. “Mr. White, it’s _ten_ in the morning. When did you have time for a few drinks? You spike your Folgers?”

“Precisely,” Walt said, raising his thermos of coffee with a dash of Jack Daniels. “Would you like any?”

“Uh, thanks, but I’m gonna pass on that.”

With another shrug, Walt took a swig and winced. He was at the bottom of the barrel so to speak, and the imbalance of whiskey to coffee wasn’t exactly appetizing. In spite of it, he drained the last of the dregs and set the empty thermos on the table with his supplies and Jesse’s cell phone.

“Let’s get this shitty ordeal over with.”

Smacking his clipboard, Walt stepped up to the nearest so-called “project.”

He remembered he was out of bacon.

Scrambled eggs and bacon sounded like a much more pleasant way to spend his Saturday morning. Hell, he’d make enough for Jesse. He would even fix him up a plate and deliver it to Jesse on the couch and perhaps even eat next to him. Jesse wouldn’t have had time to dress himself properly. He hadn’t, in the week or so since he’d been staying with Walt, seemed to have any self-consciousness practically strolling around the apartment in his baggy boxer shorts. It would be early so his reflexes would be delayed. Walt would slip his hand past the elastic waistband, watch his own knuckles skim underneath some garish skull pattern—post-rehab wardrobe choices evidently not at play here, graphics and hues still as loud as ever. And Walt would raptly listen to Jesse groan out in surprise around his fork, pet the boy until he was mewling, stiff in Walt’s hand.

“Mr. White?”

Yes, _just_ like that. He would be hesitant, unsure of himself. But, Walt would have his other hand secure around the thin muscle of Jesse’s thigh. He could keep him down until Jesse was sure.

“You feeling all right, man?”

Walt blinked at the trifold abomination in front of him and realized that the actual three-dimensional Jesse was speaking to him.    

“I’m fine, Jesse.”

“Yeah ‘cause you wasted at work is like the prime fucking example of _fine_.” He sighed petulantly. It was silent for almost a full minute. “Did something happen…with like you and your wife?”

Walt felt no responsibility to answer him. He’d promised himself as he was waiting next to his coffeemaker that morning, peeling the brown paper bag from his Jack Daniels as if he were preparing to dice a banana into Walt Jr.’s pancake batter, that showing up to the idiotic aftermath of J.P. Wynne’s “Scholastic Fair” was going to act as his full quote of bullshit for the day. This was the eighth consecutive year he’d been roped into judging the contest. Since the school didn’t have a strong enough science department to center it exclusively on the subject, they included all courses. Each year, one teacher and a member of the community were chosen to evaluate the student’s products the day following the actual event and presentations and that damn free popcorn that was always eluding him with just a teasing lingering buttery smell. This year’s community member would have been Ellen Sysco, who had promised Walt an entire plate of pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Ellen—married, early forties, always picked at her nail polish during PTA meetings and wore pantsuits in ninety degree weather and never could spell Wednesday correctly—had allegedly fallen ill with food poisoning from some bad shellfish. Walt wondered why she hadn’t just told Carmen that her dog had eaten her homework. Honestly, her lie was more deplorable than lying itself.    

Sliding the tips of his fingers along the bridge of his nose, Walt fixed his glasses and scored himself a three out of five in regards to his sobriety with five representing three sheets to the wind. He was sober enough to drive, to get through this. And he was drunk enough to enjoy himself to the point of suppressing the urge to rip his nails through enough neon poster board to wallpaper an Office Max, to think about Jesse in nothing but body ink and freckles in a way he was thankfully still having a bit of trouble with clear-headed.

Walt motioned with his chin in the direction he believed Jesse to be standing. “Need me to go over the grading system again?”

With a possible five points in each category, a student would have to earn a thirty in order to receive a perfect score from the six separate categories: creativity, use of materials, depth of research, relevance to modern issues, spelling and grammar, and aesthetics.  

“Well, having both creativity and aesthetics is kind of pointless, right? Ain’t that repetitive?”

“Isn’t high school?”

“I,” Jesse said with a chuckle, “don’t even know what to do with you, man.”

Walt _envied_ such a dilemma.

He needed to focus.

Glancing at the sheet in his hands, he examined the project accountable for his parallel universe breakfast plans. It was a Pepto-Bismol pink trifold with a painting of a large golden egg in the center. The text went into detail of how the Home Economics assignment to take care of a raw egg as a married couple required a male and female partner, which this student found to be discriminatory toward classmates who were same-sex oriented.

Walt jotted down a five for relevance to modern issues. Damn, he was already bored.

“Do you remember those anti-drug commercials several years back? There was one where someone cracked an egg over a frying pan. ‘This is your brain on drugs.’”

“I guess,” Jesse said.

Walt completed his assessment and went on to the next: a model of a cell phone tower made of a clay-like substance with a full, though somewhat alarmist report on the risk of brain damage. It was a dismal read, and he was a little miffed that Jesse had responded so briefly. Pop culture tended to get the boy riled up and chatty. He couldn’t handle quiet right now.

“Skyler asked for a divorce.”

He could sense body heat next to him, prickles of arm hair on his elbow, the subtle sensation of Jesse nervously shifting from one shoe to the other. Side-eying his clipboard, Walt could see Jesse had already gone through at least five projects. He assumed his were the easier of the lot.

“Yo, I thought it was like just temporary.”

Walt took a few steps to his left. “So did I.”

It came out toxically enough kill all hopes of a response. God, he practically had a talent for severing communication. And in the very silence he was so desperately trying to avoid, he could hear that earsplitting smash against his windshield. Debris: it had been everywhere. Some had landed on the roof of his house, in the swimming pool, on the lawn. With each surface there had been a different though equally horrifying noise.

As if his cognitive responses were one step ahead of his vision, Walt slowly grasped that he was looking at a model of a silver Delta airplane mauled to shreds next to its unscathed doppelgänger. The project was advocating for more secure air traffic precautions and increased safety measures.

It was as if the glass was splintering an inch away from his face.

“Yo,” Jesse said. His fingers made for warm, soothing company on Walt’s arm. “I got this one, Mr. White.”

Walt let himself keep moving, encouraged by Jesse’s touch like he was being gently pushed on a swing set.

If that didn’t pull up memories of childhood then this fucking godawful, generic baking soda volcano surely did. Walt scribbled down a zero for each category. He was sincerely appalled by this student’s lack of originality. The tie-in research on Herculaneum was broad and unfocused. Granted, the general public was largely unaware of the neighboring city of Pompeii that had likewise been decimated in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Both locations were utterly destroyed. Over twenty _thousand_ inhabitants were killed. Yet hardly anyone but history majors and this slacker high school student were discussing it today. No matter the casualties and destruction, only a few people would care after so long. Time had a way of obscuring things, generalizing facts, making it seem as if even catastrophic events never occurred.

Poking at the foam rendering of volcanic ash with his pen, he was distantly aware that Jesse seemed to be congested, sniffling. Walt held up his hand close to his face and belched against the back of it. With a grimace, he decided he dearly needed to invest in some Bailey’s.

“I’m gonna…go, uh,” Jesse said. “I gotta check my…my messages.”  

Walt nodded. He scraped at a fleck of dried paint in the depiction of lava pooled around the base of the volcano. Really thinking about the infliction in Jesse’s voice, the breaks splintering his words, Walt’s instincts seemed to kick in and he turned to see if Jesse was okay. The room was empty.

One of the double doors swung open, and Carmen was walking in as if it was completely natural for her to be in the J.P. Wynne library on a Saturday and in _blue jeans_.

She grinned. “ _Walter_ , I’m so glad I caught you.”

Walt felt unreasonably paranoid over her choice of expressions. She was standing close to him. He made a conscious effort to breathe through his nose.

Discreetly angling his head to the side, he smiled. “Carmen, I had no idea I’d see you today. I know you’re dedicated, but you haven’t officially moved in, have you?”

“No, no,” she said, chuckling. Her lipstick was more of an orange than a red. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood and I thought I’d pop in and see how you were doing. I’m not sure if anyone’s informed you, but Mrs. Sysco was thankfully released from the emergency room about an hour ago once the doctors were able to rehydrate her and the vomiting subsided. Speaking of which, I know I’m not exactly an unbiased member of the community, but do you need any help here?”

He shook his head. The last thing he needed was for Carmen to have another run-in with Jesse. “I’m fine really. I actually have Skyler filling in for Mrs. Sysco; so relieved to hear she’s on the mend.”

“Skyler’s here?” Carmen grinned. “Does she have _Holly_ with her?”

Walt forced out as much of a laugh as he could with only partially opened lips. “Walt Jr.’s earning his big brother brownie points babysitting for us. Skyler and I are going to make a day out of it. I think we might be seeing a movie later this afternoon.”

He wasn’t sure what he should be more vexed over: that in a single whiskey-concealed exhale, he managed to incorporate his entire immediate family in this fabrication or that in the nonfictional world Jesse was playing the part of Skyler.

Carmen patted his elbow. “ _Fun_! Do you know what movie? I’ve heard the new _Stark Trek_ is supposed to be just phenomenal. Were you a Trekkie in your teens, Walter? I can only imagine you….”

What in god’s name was she going on about? Walt felt as if his entire circulatory system was reverberating in his eardrums as he constantly checked and re-checked the doors for Jesse. Should he have another excuse ready to draw like a TR-116 Projectile Rifle? _Of course_ he’d been a Trekkie. He’d been an overly-excitable eight-year-old boy obsessed with space exploration, tired of getting his blood drawn so often for a disease he knew very little about. All he understood was that it made his dad sick and that his mom wanted to make absolute sure—I promise, Sweetheart. This is the _last_ shot—that he would never develop it. His father had then passed away. Saying the show was an escape was putting it lightly.

He couldn’t believe she was _still_ talking. Waiting for a pause seemed like a fruitless strategy in this case.

“You don’t say.” Walt flashed a smile. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been drinking…soda all day long. And, well, if you’ll excuse me.”

“ _Of course_ ,” she said. “Tell Skyler I said hello, and hug Holly for me.”

Walt was already across the room when he tossed out a “Will do” over his shoulder. Opening the left swinging door, he nearly knocked Jesse unconscious.

“ _Shh_ ,” Walt said.

He grabbed him by the opened flap of his military jacket and pushed him to the nearest classroom, which was _of course_ locked, but at least the row of nearby lockers was enough to obscure them from sight if he _really_ pressed Jesse into the door.

Jesse hissed, “ _What the hell_?”

“Shut up.” Walt cupped his hand over Jesse’s mouth. “Carmen’s here.”

His skin felt flushed under Walt’s palm, appeared a little ruddier than he remembered when seeing him last, and Walt supposed he’d been crying again. Jesse was still doing that frequently in his sleep. He hoped he wasn’t the one to trigger it this time.

It would be so easy to kiss Jesse.

Low-heeled boots clicked down the hall in the opposite direction and then the metal hinges of the front entrance creaked open—was maintenance _ever_ going to tend to that?—and clamored shut.

Walt sighed, slid his hand over to clap the side of Jesse’s face. He was grateful the boy hadn’t budged other than widen his eyes. His jaw was speckled with a few days’ growth. It suited Jesse.    

“What’s say we finish this and watch the other two _Godfathers_?” Walt was still buzzed, antsy in a sort of pleasant way, and he was blaming it entirely for how he teasingly shook Jesse’s shoulder.

Jesse shook his head, eyes enlarged again. But, he actually laughed. “Yeah, fucking drunk paranoid freak, sounds cool.”

“Like _sorta_ gay, but cool,” Jesse said.

Snickering, he started back towards the library. “I don’t know about you, man, but I’m totally giving that shitty volcano like a negative five.”

Walt followed him, smiling, ready to get the _hell_ out of there.


	5. Chapter 5

Walt was impressed really just how well J.P. Wynne could fuck him over. He’d been employed there for almost fifteen years and was never once required to distribute progress reports before final exams. It was obliterating his end-of-the-year routine, just feeding it into a damn paper shredder. Walt had a fucking _system_.

Exam period meant revisiting class objectives, doling out study-guide outlines, and using the same testing format he had crafted on the way to work when he still owned a car with a tape deck and didn’t want to steer into oncoming traffic during his morning commute. With his students busy preparing for and then taking their final, Walt would catch up on grading so that he was well prepared to calculate averages by the time report cards needed to be filled. The system was effective, provided him some well-deserved slack, and was conducive to the way he’d learned to pace his lessons. Walt liked the system.

This last-minute school-wide policy change was the equivalent of marching into an office full of Certified Public Accountants on March twenty-seventh and informing them that the deadline for filling income tax had been moved to next week. They would riot for god’s sake. Everyone would be audited. Everything would turn to shit.

It was well past one in the fucking morning.

Walt lifted his arms in peevish surrender. “I’m quitting. I’m dead serious. I’m done.”

“Yo, can you like postpone your drama-queen shit for like five minutes?” Jesse popped yet another Funyun in his mouth, nonchalantly perched on the far end of Walt’s desk like a seductress in a fucking film noir. “Relax. We’re having snack time, bitch.”

Walt rubbed at his scalp—when exactly had that become a stress tic?—and closed his eyes trying to determine how many periods he had left. Freshman classes were finished as were his two Honors courses. He was a little less than a third of the way through with his Advanced Placement class. What was he leaving out?

He felt a nudge on his arm. Jesse was smiling at him with an outstretched Kit-Kat.

“For real, Mr. White, we’re on a fucking break. Enjoy the like fresh air in here. Eat something. Look at this dope spread.”

“Spread” was the exact word Walt would have used because he could hardly see his desk beneath the Fritos, honey buns, Starbursts, Cheetos, and wide assortment of candy bars. When he had asked Walt if he wanted anything from the vending machine he hadn’t expected Jesse to loot the thing like a ravenous pothead. He even had the option of Coke, Sprite, or orange Fanta. Walt guessed this was Jesse’s pathetic attempt to make amends for his unaccounted for two days absence. It was typical Jesse. Walt needed his help and he fucking disappeared. While Walt had known about the new procedure for progress reports in advance, he shouldn’t have been expected to remember mundane details of that nature after going through major surgery. It was Carmen’s place to remind him.

Walt even, as per her passive-aggressive request, deliberately left his door ajar when Jesse finally made an appearance forty-five minutes after the bus lot was empty. He didn’t want anyone having any misconceived assumptions about his moral character.

The opened windows were a separate and significantly more frustrating matter, because it made _absolute_ sense that the A/C would shut off in the midst of this hellacious all-nighter. Outside was cooler than in once the air stopped circulating and the fungus stench set in full force. Propping them up had hardly been an option. Though, part of Walt could squelch his annoyance enough to appreciate the breeze. It was almost downright chilly for late May, the kind of clear night temperature that would have made Walt feel like he was in the desert if it weren’t for that dog barking or the hum of an occasional car or the distant smell of cheap spaghetti sauce. He’d cooked enough Chef Boyardee to recognize it a block away.      

He was glad he’d brought a jacket. It was serving him well, much unlike Jesse’s off-white cardigan with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the buttons entirely unfastened. He couldn’t understand the reasoning in wearing it at that point. And, sporting a shirt with a large dollar sign graphic underneath it felt like an intentional, personal dig. Saul had obviously given Jesse his money, and he could move on now with no form of a goodbye other than a throw blanket folded and tucked into the corner of Walt’s couch. The past two days had been frighteningly dull.

No, he was delusion; low blood sugar.

Walt ripped into a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos just as he remembered he preferred the original flavor. But, backing out now, two of them already pinched between his fingers, would make him look completely foolish, too wishy-washy, like he couldn’t make up his mind. Hell, just the other day he’d wholeheartedly planned on storming right into his house with or without Skyler’s approval only to have work unexpectedly build up like it had. Plus, he didn't have any idea if Jesse was planning on coming back. The slight didn’t justify having Jesse sleep out on the street. Walt presumed he owed him that much.

Jesse was inhaling dramatically through his nose with a sort of expectant smile. What exactly did Jesse want _now_? Whatever it was, he was laying on this concerned rouse a little too thick.

“Feeling like any better, Mr. White?”

“Jesse, there have been countless studies on while simple carbohydrates and processed sugars give you a brief sense of euphoria and focus, the consequent crash outweighs any momentary rush.” He shoveled in an opened palm-full of Cheetos. “That’s not even taking into consideration the higher risk of type 2 diabetes and elevated cholesterol. So, in fact, _no_ , I’m not feeling any better.”

“ _Fucking_ ”—Jesse lobbed a Skittle at Walt’s chest—“ _ass_ ”—He flung out another that smacked Walt on the shoulder—“ _hole_!”

The next candy stung the skin of Walt’s neck, but he was going to be the adult in the room. He slugged down some Coke, drowning the last of the soggy, spicy bits on his tongue, and raised his index finger.

“I swear to God, Jesse, you as much as _drop_ one more of those and I’ll knock your damn teeth out.”

Jesse’s eyebrows went up in sync with his hand. Smirking, he dumped the packet of Skittles, letting them pour out onto the concrete like a hail storm.

Walt’s fists were wrapped in cardigan, shaking, seething before he could appropriately process the reaction. He’d hauled Jesse over to the very brink of the desk, Walt’s arms the only things keeping the boy from falling. He wasn’t sure how he’d physically managed that still seated. Becoming furious and blacking out was something he had always dealt with, though in a much more restrained, apologetic, remorseful manner. _Bottling_ is how he used to operate. Now, if he wanted to set a jackass’ car on fire or crush the life out of Jesse, well then he fucking would. He had every right to be angry.

Jesse was making this easy.

Attempting to gain a little distance, Jesse was shoving and clawing at Walt’s forearms about as spastically as a kitten preparing for its heartworm pill. His jaw was firmly set with his teeth gritting together. And when Walt lugged him a fraction of an inch forward, Jesse’s knees grazed the tops of Walt’s thighs in a way that felt simultaneously foreseeable and shocking.

Walt swallowed thickly in the same second he recognized the webbing between his thumb and forefinger was flush against an Adam’s apple. His hand was around Jesse’s throat.

“School board know…you’re…strangling dudes at work? This punishment? _Huh_? _Fucking oversensitive dickwad_.”

It was garbled with spit, pithy yet reckless, said with a daring, quaking jaw.    

Walt dug his fingertips into where the neck muscles and mandible met, forcing Jesse’s lips to involuntarily part like a ventriloquist’s dummy with Jesse’s eyes nearly doll-sized. Jesse’s movements were beginning to slow. Walt was fucking winning. The kid ran on pizza and soft drinks and cigarettes. It wasn’t exactly a surprise.

 _“Mr.…White._ ” His voice sounded absolutely ruined, raw, almost as if he had lung cancer. “Saul got…my aunt’s place back. I…bought it…blackmailed…my folks. Got to tell them to fuck….”

Walt pressed in firmer.

Jesse desperately flipped off the empty space next to him.

“…themselves. Nothing personal. I’m…sorry.”

Walt moved in more, wondering if he could pierce into a vein if he really tried, regardless of whether he wanted to or not. Bending at the waist, he felt his erection prod at his stomach. He was all-too aware of his blood-engorged appendage. But, something didn’t seem right; an alarm wailing in his chest cavity.

Jesse was staring at it, miming an escape more so than actually struggling. He didn’t seem to have enough energy to do more than reach up and caress the back of Walt’s hand. Jesse’s eyes were still transfixed on his crotch.

Walt let him go.

“ _Shit_.” Jesse heaved, flopping almost in half, fumbling with his neck with one hand while his other wiggled into his pocket. He pulled out a white and blue pack, then a yellow lighter, and tilted his wrist. “’S okay?”

He nodded, queasy, sick. Every part of his body felt swollen, distended with nerves and blood, and he wanted to pass out even though he wasn’t the one who’d been deprived of oxygen.

Jesse was too close now. His lips were snug around his cigarette, pluming the smoke out to the side, cradling the dangle of ash.

Walt slid him his Father’s Day mug.

“Are you all right?”

He took a quick inventory of his desk. A few wrinkled worksheets, several scattered ballpoint pens, and a squashed Zebra Cake were the only casualties. None of the beverages had spilled. He took a sip of Sprite; still cold.

The butt of Jesse’s cigarette descended into the mouth of the cup, trailing exhaust.

Jesse struggled to pull open a bag of Cheetos. “Guess so.”

Walt could tell Jesse’s motor skills weren’t up for the task. While he didn’t want to spook the boy with overly jerky movements, Walt’s body didn’t appear capable of anything else. So, he snatched the package from Jesse, ripped open the seal, and dropped it back into Jesse’s hand. His own hands were shaking hard enough to look as if he were recovering from a stroke. He couldn’t sit still. He didn’t want to move. He nearly felt like vomiting.

“Jesse, I’m…I didn’t…I shouldn’t have…I….

Crunching loudly, he tipped the bag over to Walt. “Yo, you having a seizure?”

Walt scooped out only a couple of Cheetos, though eating them wasn’t pleasant in the slightest. Swallowing was difficult. His stomach felt distorted and bloated with fluid.

“Mr. White, I didn’t mean to just like waltz out your place like you letting me stay there was nothing. I couldn’t like, you know, miss this opportunity. They were fucking _selling off_ my aunt’s house. And, I didn’t tell you ‘cause you were at work and you got like other shit to deal with and your always so damn pissy when I call you.”

Walt attempted to attain some sort of posture to mask his lower half, but it seemed rather pointless. His skin was flushed. He could hardly feel the breeze.

“A note would have worked just fine,” he said. He ran his palm down his scalp and cleared his throat. “Let’s, let’s move past it; talk about something else.”

“Something else?” Jesse gnawed at his upper lip and set his snack aside, nodding to the exact place he shouldn’t. “Mean like how you got like a raging, massive boner right now?”

Walt narrowed his eyes. Using just the molten rubble of what was left of his cognitive responses, he couldn’t help but focus on the magma-like glimmering potential within Jesse’s sarcasm. One corner of his mouth even lifted up a little. “ _Massive_?”

He stuck his chin out with somewhat of a scowl. “Mr. White, does hurting me get you off or something?”

Walt considered that concept for a second. He shook his head. It had to be at least half true.

Jesse scooted closer, jeans crinkling perhaps a dozen more papers and flattening a honey bun in their wake, black Converse sneakers flanking Walt’s legs. “Do I...you know…get you off?”

It took almost every ounce of effort on his part to snort, to appear putout, to sour his expression. He crossed his arms across his chest even though they were still a little unsteady.

Jesse’s hand was on Walt’s knee. The scorpion was prepped to strike.

“Yo, I know,” Jesse said. “I know you were hard before, like way back when I had to stay after school. I saw it. I know you were hard.”

Walt tried to push his lower back deeper into the chair. “Jesse, I don’t know what you _think_ you saw, but—”

“Yo, _relax_. You don’t gotta be nervous.” He shifted his hand, absently picking at the inseam, gently scratching through Walt’s khakis as if he were placating a puppy. “I guess it’s like alright or whatever. It was what I was going for after all, like trying to pass junior year. I had to go to fucking summer school, and like even then graduated by like the teeth of my skin.”

Walt was past correcting idioms. He couldn’t fathom how such an angular hand could feel so _damn_ heavy.

“But, like being hard is okay. Your body can do some weird-ass shit when you’re lonely.” Jesse’s gaze was down, speaking almost to himself. “It’s okay.”

He moved his hand far enough up the leg of Walt’s pants for his elbow to completely extend, fingers slithering between Walt’s thighs, which Walt parted on pure, basic reflex. Jesse let just the outer line of his hand brush Walt’s groin. “I got this one, Mr. White.”

Walt could feel the barest hint of the flats of Jesse’s fingers as they slid across the lump in his slacks; Jesses’ touch cautious like he was testing the temperature of a hot surface. But, even that much had Walt’s cock practically drooling. Then it was like that for a spell: soft, short, little caresses, Jesse squirming to regain his stability on the desk, Walt’s arms deadweight and hanging, just receiving Jesse like he’d always deserved.

Circling his thumb a little harder into him, Jesse finally found the zipper and yanked it down. Three lanky, trembling fingers delved past the breach of Walt’s fly and wormed their way into his underwear. And, _oh god_ , this was real. Jesse’s skin was on Walt’s cock. He should say something.

“ _Jesse_ ,” he groaned.

Remaining eerily indifferent, Jesse didn’t even spare him a glance as he pulled Walt from his pants. Jesse appeared to be in a trance. Walt wasn’t going to have it that way. Jesse needed to be present.

Walt choked around a dry sort of chuckle. “You know, I can’t send you back to summer school, right?”       

Jesse drew back, nose somewhat furrowed as he inspected his own hand like a foreign specimen. He pushed away completely until with a clattering fall of Snickers and Twix bars, he was on his feet and walking out of the damn room.

Walt was paralyzed. His dick was out, door open, windows up, and this was all happening at Wynne and maybe finishing _himself_ off was going to have to cut it.

The sound of rubber-soled steps had him picturing an overzealous security guard until Jesse was waltzing through the door again and clambering back onto the desk. Scooting closer, Jesse teetered on the brim and reclaimed Walt in his hand like Walt’s dick was a controller to a briefly paused video game.

Jesse’s skin was cold, and wet, and just barley slippery. Walt thought he smelled something like putrefied, wilted roses and artificial cherry flavoring. He recognized it as the cheap liquid soap from the bathroom.

Jesse had washed his hands. He still had suds on his thin, almost skeletal wrists. His right one, branded in reckless, juvenile ink, Walt’s favorite if he had one, was contorting this way and that as he started to stroke Walt with uneven, quick tugs. It reminded Walt of how he’d masturbate under the covers of his top bunk at sleep-away camp with hurried, clumsy motions. The parallel was inexplicably delicious.           

The door rattled.

Walt could have sworn he heard the slap of a screen door, the metal jingle of a counselor’s whistle above the crickets, and he must have lurched a good five inches off his chair.

No one was there.

The A/C had switched back on.

He was smirking at Walt. Jesse Bruce Pinkman: present.

And, everything was okay. Jesse was okay. _This_ was okay. Walt had permission to enjoy the pull of Jesse’s fist, the lingering soap foam, the concept of getting rubbed off at his desk without any legal ramifications because this was Jesse after all. Jesse was touching him.

“ _Good_ , _Jesse_ ,” Walt said.

It was a moronic declaration because Walt was dripping down Jesse’s knuckles, shinning practically under the fluorescent lights. He was harder than he could remember being in far too long. But, Jesse seemed to just _glow_. He was speeding up ever so slightly, bending his head down in an appealing demeanor of concentration. He leaned so close their foreheads were at risk of making contact.

Jesse licked the corner of his lips. “Always thought you’d be like one of those dudes that grunts a lot the whole time.”

“I’ll be damned.” Walt raised an eyebrow. “You actually put thought into something.”

He sort of gaped at that, essentially breathing on Walt’s cheek, floundering perhaps for a response.

Walt tipped his chin up and kissed him.

With a startled hitch in his breath, Jesse dropped right onto Walt’s lap. Body heat now bathing his chest and thighs, and air conditioning gasping on his scalp: Walt felt like he was coming down with something. He gently pressed his mouth against Jesse’s again.

He jolted back, hissing as if deeply offended. But when Jesse jerked his hips forward, he felt Jesse’s cock digging impatiently into his thigh. Walt smiled; Jesse was hard.

Happily intending to reciprocate, Walt was confused by the loss of contact until he realized Jesse was holding himself up with his hands on the sides of the chair. He appeared to be gaging Walt’s expression, raising his body like a student with their hand up, waiting for permission.

Walt placed both hands on Jesse’s lower back and slid them down into his back pockets, palms full of taut muscle as he yanked Jesse into his crotch. Jesse hiccupped with his right temple on Walt’s shoulder, acting as if this were too much already. And Walt wanted action and consent and participation all in this one skinny little armful. So he dipped down and kissed the crown of his head.

Jesse shuddered, blinking, and the boy kissed him just as his lower half spastically revved to life. Phrasing it as “zero to sixty” was more than appropriate considering Walt’s cock was brutally pinned underneath Jesse’s vigorous thrusts, bare and delightfully grating into the grain of Jesse’s jeans, feeling like the accelerator under a lead foot.

He had no hope of lasting much longer. Jesse was making these breathy sounds that were all vowels and cigarette-scented. He looked like he was in a fast-forward montage: shutting his eyes with his teeth together, then quickly and sloppily kissing Walt’s jaw, and then straightening his spine, tipping his head back in bliss before his lips were on Walt’s with his tongue licking inside Walt’s mouth.

Walt still had his hands firmly around Jesse’s ass, wanting the boy against him as snug as possible as they rutted into each other. Jesse was pushing back so forcefully Walt thought he was aiming to fuse Walt with the plastic of his seat. His cock somehow felt both numb and outrageously sensitive.

He lifted Jesse a little higher. And, with Jesse grinding _just_ right against his balls, the head of Walt’s dick glided over the smooth, slippery metal of Jesse’s zipper and he came hard enough to soak every near inch of denim.

Jesse moaned, almost convulsing as he rotated his hips, like he was mashing himself into the damp spot on his jeans. Walt only needed to shove his thigh forward a few times before every feature of Jesse’s face cinched in tight and he exhaled out a gritty, “ _Fuck, Mr. White_.”

He let Jesse sit there for a minute or two, catching his own breath and cleaning the moisture from his glasses that had managed not to get in the way.

Jesse chuckled softly into the crook of his neck with his fingers still clutching wrinkles into the front of his button-down.

“Yo, that shit was _way_ too good.”

The sticky sensation, and reluctantly recognizing he had yet another ninety or so progress reports to complete was sort of dissipating any lustful clouding Walt had been wading through before. He’d have to work for at least another hour even though every biological instinct was coaxing him into calling it a night.

Fidgeting and shifting, Walt could feel Jesse move along with him like a limp, sleeping, newborn kitten.

Walt kissed him on the rounded jut of his cheekbone, watched up-close at his peaceful smile and the fluttering of his eyelashes. He soothingly scratched the back of Jesse’s neck and whispered, “I’m going to need you to get off me now, Jesse.”


	6. Chapter 6

Jesse was absent for another two days of Walt's life. But, he guessed Jesse didn’t miss much: an altercation with a police officer and him chucking a damn pizza on the roof of his house. He had _quite_ an enlightening dinner in his former home. The tenants of the adjacent apartment were having extremely loud sex _again_. Exams were well underway.

He’d sworn he was drifting off on the living room floor the last time he was semi-conscious, fingers full of carpet, quarter-empty fifth of Jack Daniels a malevolent glint on the coffee table.

Walt was in bed.

His glasses had been removed and the room was a reddish-dark. Heavy cloud cover and too many upward-facing streetlamps gave it that tint. His curtains were pretty and delicate and grossly ineffective. Who knew such a pricy apartment could be so damn shitty? The plumbing was inadequate, walls thin enough to transmit every moan and groan as if his neighbor’s fucking jubilant sex-life was diffusing through the very paint, and now his mattress was a lumpy sack of shit regardless of any attempts to get comfortable. Eyes closed with a headache, he tried to press his chest further down.

One of his pillows pushed him back.

Walt heard a gulping swallow before feeling another nudge.

“You’re…crushing me, Mr. White.”

He lifted his arm and peered against the fluorescent exterior-light coming through the blinds. If Walt hadn’t been wearing a shirt, he would have felt the expanse of dappled skin with that grotesque skull between the shoulder blades, Jesse’s bare back against him. That didn’t sound like a terrible idea, so he clumsily pulled his t-shirt over his head.

Jesse craned his neck. “What are you doing?”

Taking the thing off had been exhausting. It upturned his concept of where things were as the furniture titled and swayed like the entire second floor was in turbulence. He honestly couldn’t tell if he was drunk or hung-over or both.

Flopping down with his full weight, he felt Jesse’s back, warm and supple, tense up.

“ _Yo_.” Jesse was wheezing. “ _Gonna…smash…a rib_.”

Walt grumbled into Jesse’s hair and eased off just a little with his torso still adhered to the boy. Jesse began coughing and it seemed as if his neighbors were trying to compete in terms of obnoxious volume with a shrill “ _Oh Daddy, yes_!” If Walt’s mental blueprint of the apartment complex was correct then that was the dumpy, mid-forties, high-waisted-jeaned couple who owned a litter of chirping Pomeranians and hosted a book club on Saturday mornings. The woman looked like an overfed hamster.     

“Chick seriously needs a ball gag,” Jesse said, words sounding foggy with fabric. “They been like this since I left?”

Walt nodded against Jesse’s shoulder.

“Yo, need anything? Like water or Aspirin or”—Jesse snickered—“ _more_ popcorn?”

He vaguely remembered popping a bag and unintentionally dumping most of it around the living room during a livid recall of Skyler’s venomous “I fucked Ted” over the salad bowl. It wasn’t funny. Wedging a hand between Jesse’s chest and the bed, he fumbled with his fingers around thin trails of hair until he found the raised flesh of a nipple and squeezed.  

“ _Oh fuck_ , _Mr. White_.”

Walt felt sweatpants rub up against his crotch. He’d unfortunately had too much to drink to properly appreciate the gesture. He held Jesse by his side though his initial intention was lost once he felt the stark outline of hipbone. It was fascinating to feel that in the dark, to know this skeleton belonged to Jesse, to feel him roll his pelvis into the mattress. He heard that jarring voice cry “ _Please, Daddy! I want it!_ ” If Walt rocked forward, Jesse might enjoy getting rubbed into the sheets. At least one of them would get something out if it. Walt wasn’t sure if his nausea could handle the motion. Jesse stopped anyway, almost self-consciously readjusting as best as he could with another body mostly on top of him.

“My house was…too fucking empty,” Jesse said.

Walt assumed he'd left the door to his apartment unlocked, though he wasn’t sure of the physical logistics of how Jesse had navigated him to his room. He had a fuzzy image of the two of them in the upstairs hallway. Jesse’s tiny ear was in Walt’s mouth? Yes, he was sucking on it, hand benignly attempting to claw his way into the boy’s clothes. Jesse was a hazy, grinning vertical line of giggles.

“ _Shit_ ,” Jesse had said. “You’re gonna fucking fall over. Come on, I’ll pop the shirt off if you get in bed.”

It was blank after that.

Pressing his nose against the nape of Jesse’s neck, Walt inhaled notes of ginger and cinnamon and sweat. “You smell nice.”

Jesse chuckled and raised his ass back again, gently bobbing up and down. They were lined up like a damn dream. Walt could slip Jesse’s boxers past his thighs. He’d reach between his legs to perhaps a ready erection. He would tell Jesse to lean forward at the waist. Whiskey-dick was a son of a bitch.

“You wanna…you know like, do something?”

“No.”

Jesse wiggled again. “You sure, man?”

He stroked Jesse’s arm with the backs of his fingers and murmured an affirmative noise. “Rain check?”

He nodded, silent long enough for Walt to assume he’d fallen asleep until he felt Jesse shifting.

Jesse sniffed. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

Walt opened his mouth against the nearest cluster of freckles. He may have used a little more tongue than necessary for a goodnight kiss. But, he was groggier now and Jesse’s balmy, salty taste was oddly bewitching. Having someone this close would do wonders for his sleep.

The swell of Jesse’s rear returned to thumping at Walt’s offensively apathetic groin. It had Walt idly reimagining restless nights of tossing and turning but with the willing libido of a twenty-something tucked into the other side of the bed. Jesse was tilting up eagerly enough for Walt to limply dip somewhat into that welcoming crease just a breath beneath Jesse’s cotton sweatpants.

He heard the electronic beep of a car lock, whimper-scratch-whimper of a Pomeranian or five, and “ _Yeah, Daddy_! _Just like that_!”

“Sure you’re sure, Mr. White?” His tattooed arm managed to skulk out a short distance above the blanket, sluggish like a bug gradually drying out in the sun. “Ain’t gotta be like elaborate or whatever. Just making each other feel good.”

“Sounds nice, Jesse.” Walt yawned. He was drifting again. “Some other time, all right?”

Jesse scrubbed his face into the pillowcase and seemed to shiver.

“Yeah.”

Walt tugged the sheet up more before kissing the side of his neck. “Get some sleep.”

“‘Night, Mr. White.”

He settled his cheek against the lulling inhale-exhale of Jesse’s back. Walt had Jesse’s heartbeat quivering in one eardrum with the sound of mattress springs shrieking like scraps of metal sparking against asphalt in the other. He pictured himself standing on the very edge of the sky. Falling was inevitable. But, the desert was so serene from this height. Risks, damages, consequences weren’t in play. Sliding his palm down to the hot, soft plane of Jesse’s belly, he imagined them simply sinking into the warmth of the sand. He would let the sand bury them until they no longer had skin or pores or bones, only belonged there as atoms. Dissolving under the sun, he and Jesse would be the nothing but the same handful of sand. They would be grit. They would be dirt. They would be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for reading and leaving comments and kudos!


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